Letters

At My Zoo: An ode to the Albuquerque BioPark

Ocelot, Leopardus pardalis

Compfight cc via Spencer Wright

We watched the ocelots a lot,But all they did was fought and fought,So then we had another thought,We'd look for something gnu.The Tasmanian devil's a nasty old fellow,He's always mad, never just mellow.They threw him out of Pocatello,For eating their kangaroo.Ever watch a hippo dineOn oats and grain and fine white wine?Worth standing in a lengthy line,Just to watch him chew.Llama ding and Llama DongCould never seem to get along.Except for spitting on passing throng,What llama see, llama do.Our parrot Zeke will often speakOf the mate he failed to keep.He spent with her a lovely weekAt another zoo.The boa constrictor got into the liquor,The more he drank the sicker and sicker,And hissy-fits came quicker and quicker,So everything ended in rue.Our owl at night will take to flightAnd with her wings and mighty sightWill give the mice a ghastly fright.By day, she just says “Who.”The monkey troop will swing and swayAnd you will waste another dayBut you will want to stay and stayTill they start watching you.The bear in there has lost his hairBut nude he didn't seem to care.He walked with such a regal air,I stripped to naked, too.Tiger Tess was in distressAll wrinkled up. Oh, what a mess.She went in for a clean and pressAnd a stripe redo.Elephant's in a major funk.No noise would come from massive trunk.The cries of “Mute!” she must debunk.So she began to moo.The peacock's tail will never failTo catch the eye of another male.But a hen he must regaleSo now he wears J. Crew.

—Little Jimmy Berry

Dig Deeper Into Wage Issue

Dear Alibi,

The minimum wage article in your Feb. 27 issue deserves deeper consideration of this important national issue and less conjecture from Mr. Gessing. I would like to refer your readers interested in the facts to the New York Times editorial of Feb. 8, "The Case For A Higher Minimum Wage.” I will quote a small section which contradicts Mr. Gessing's assumptions.

"Does it kill jobs? The minimum wage is one of the most thoroughly researched issues in economics. Studies in the last 20 years have been especially informative, as economists have been able to compare states that raised the wage above the federal level with those that did not.

The weight of the evidence shows that increases in the minimum wage have lifted pay without hurting employment, a point that was driven home in a recent letter to Mr. Obama and congressional leaders, signed by more than 600 economists, among them Nobel laureates and past presidents of the American Economic Association.”

Harm Reduction Correction

Dear Alibi readers,

An earlier version of “Mediating Heroin and Harm Reduction,” which appeared in print volume 23, no. 10, incorrectly stated that SB 241 passed to the governor’s desk during the 2014 legislative session. In fact, SB 241 stalled in committee. Weekly Alibi regrets the error.

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